Healthy Hygiene Habits For Kids

Growing up is hard work. Along the way, you have to learn a lot of things, from school subjects like reading and writing and math to basic skills to take care of your body. From dental care to the simple washing of your body, good hygiene habits are important to make sure that you stay healthy as you grow up.

What Are Germs?

Of all of the things that threaten our health, germs have to rank as one of the worst. Germs make us sick, give us infections, and cause a host of other problems. In fact, germs are such a problem for our bodies that our hygiene practices are largely focused on killing germs and preventing them from entering our bodies. Germs are microorganisms such as viruses and bacteria that are responsible for illness, and they are all around us. Our bodies are good at fighting off many of the germs that enter our bodies, but there are germs that will make us sick if they get into our mouths, noses, and other orifices. The first step to understanding why good hygiene practices are so important is to know what germs are and how they are passed from one person to another.

Research continues to prove that washing our hands is one of the best ways to prevent the spread of germs and disease. Since we touch our eyes, noses, and other parts of our bodies with our hands, germs can easily move from our hands into our bodies and make us sick. Regular and proper handwashing dramatically reduces the risk of catching viruses and bacteria that can make us ill or give us an infection. For example, regular handwashing will reduce the odds of getting a cold or the flu by up to 20 percent. Want to stay healthy? Wash your hands!

Excellent dental care is vital for preventing tooth and gum disease. Germs love to feed on the sugars that we eat, and if sugars remain on our teeth, bacteria can use the sugars to make cavities and cause other problems. Proper tooth-brushing and flossing, however, makes it much harder for bacteria to give us cavities. In fact, those who brush their teeth correctly greatly reduce the odds of losing their teeth or having to go to the dentist for dental work.

It has been estimated that some form of gum disease affects up to 75 percent of the U.S. population. Much of this could be prevented by following the good dental care practice of flossing our teeth. One of the most commonly neglected practices is flossing, but this is unfortunate because flossing is one of the best ways to prevent gum disease. Brushing teeth removes much of the sugar and plaque that causes cavities and gum disease, but brushing alone cannot get rid of all of the food between our teeth. To do that, we need to floss.

Oily, dirty hair doesn’t look good, and it can attract insects and other organisms. Hair can also be a breeding ground for lice and other things. The best way to keep this from happening is good hair hygiene. At a minimum, that involves washing our hair on a regular basis.

Our skin is the largest organ of our bodies, and a lot of bacteria and viruses congregate on our skin’s surface. Washing ourselves regularly will eliminate most of these germs, but there are skin problems that washing alone can’t solve. Dry skin can lead to conditions such as eczema, which causes itchiness and redness. Rashes and other skin issues are also problems that we can face without good skin hygiene. If we care for our skin properly, however, we will avoid many of these problems.

It’s important to wash your hands, but to have the cleanest hands possible, we must also clean under our nails. Removing the dirt under our fingernails and toenails helps us to get rid of any germs that are living in that dirt. Washing our hands but not cleaning under our nails is like brushing our teeth but not flossing when it comes to dental care. Our hands will get clean but not as clean as if we scrubbed under our nails, too.

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